Archive for the ‘4.5 Cupcakes’ Category

When Summer and Bird’s parents disappear in the middle of the night, the girls go looking for them, and find themselves in the strange world of Down, trapped in perpetual winter since the queen of the birds disappeared. While Bird finds herself tangled in the lies of the bird-eating, power-grasping Puppeteer, Summer tries to find her lost sister, their mother, and the secret route to the birds’ great migration. But there are secrets hidden in Down and in the sisters’ past that may break the bond between them forever.

When Evie’s parents ship her off to New York City to live with her Uncle Will, she’s expecting a positutely wonderful new life in the city that never sleeps, Prohibition be damned. Maybe the glitz and glamour can help her forget about her brother, killed in World War I, or the weird power she has that keeps getting her in trouble. But that’s before a serial killer starts cutting a swathe of ritualistic murders through New York – murders that Uncle Will thinks might be calculated to bring about the apocalypse. Throw in a Harlem poet with healing hands, a charismatic pickpocket digging up government conspiracies, a Ziegfield Girl with a troubled past, plenty of hooch, and a whole lot of secrets, and New York may just be more than Evie bargained for.

Belleville is the perfect town, neat and clean and organized, which is just the way 12-year-old Victoria likes it. But then rumpled, unconventional Lawrence, her best – and only – friend, disappears. Naturally, it’s Victoria’s job to look for him. But when she does, she uncovers a terrifying conspiracy, a world of nightmares that all revolve around the spooky Cavendish Home, where “odd” kids either come out different – or not at all.

In the final book in the Seven Realms series, Raisa has finally been placed on the throne as Queen of the Fells – but that doesn’t mean she’s safe. The wizards still hope to replace her; the clans are willing to go to war to get her to marry one of their own; neighboring kingdoms threaten their borders. And her bodyguard, street lord-turned-wizard Han Allister, is determined to marry Raisa himself. Though Raisa returns Han’s love, she knows she has to make a political alliance for the good of the kingdom. But a thousand-year-old secret just might make Han the most powerful match of all.

Jerome has been Heidi’s guardian angel ever since his own untimely death at 17. A chronic screw-up, Jerome’s been given the chance to redeem his soul and go to Heaven by looking after Heidi. But when the unthinkable happens, Jerome and Heidi have to figure out how to fix things before Jerome is condemned to Hell – and before Heidi’s soul is lost forever.

These two books don’t actually have much in common, but I’m killing two birds with one stone here because they’re both sequels to books I really enjoyed, and while I liked both books, I don’t have a heck of a lot to say about either one.

Having saved the monastery of Vbngoom from certain destruction, all Lily, Katie, and Jasper want to do is head home. But the despotic government of Delaware is none too eager to let these troublesome children past the state borders, and the Ministry of Silence has eyes everywhere. With the help of the monks of Vbngoom, our heroes desperately struggle towards the New Jersey border, but there’s a spy among their party…

Miri is stuck in the middle between twin brothers and twin sisters, and feels totally alone, especially when they move to a big old house in the middle of the country. But when she finds a mysterious piece of glass in her room, she looks through it and finds herself transported to 1935, where she meets a girl just her age named Molly, who begs Miri to save her. Now Miri’s got to figure out how to get both of them back to the present – and it might just be a matter of life and death.

Simple goose girl Alexandria should never have given the old beggar woman the last of her food. The woman turned out be her fairy godmother, and now Alexandria is the most beautiful girl in the world, with tears of diamonds and hair that shakes out gold dust – and trapped in a tower by an evil King and a foolish Prince, both of whom want to marry her. With the help of her geese, she escapes, but she still has to overcome ogres, wicked baronesses, and a decades-long conspiracy if she wants to reach her happily ever after.

In the hugely anticipated final book in the Hunger Gamestrilogy, Katniss finds herself at the center of the growing rebellion. But even in isolated District 13 there are politics she must navigate and dangers she must guard against – not to mention Peeta is still a prisoner of the Capitol. Can Katniss be the rebels’ Mockingjay without becoming a pawn in someone else’s game? And what will the cost of independence be?